Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : * Phoma herbarum Westend.,  typ. cons.

Description : Lichenicolous. Conidiomata pycnidia, arising singly, or aggregated, globose, immersed or partly erumpent, brown to dark-brown, ostiolate; walls usually thin, of a few layers of cells (1–3), pseudoparenchymatous, pale-brown to brown, more deeply pigmented around ostiole, textura angularis rather thin-walled. Conidiophores normally absent. Conidiogenous cells enteroblastic, lining pycnidial cavity, short-cylindrical to doliiform, phialidic, not proliferating, hyaline. Conidia arising singly, not catenate, variable in shape, ellipsoidal, subcylindrical, fusiform, pyriform or globose, rounded at apex and base or with base slightly truncated, hyaline, simple when mature (exceptionally becoming 1-septate), sometimes distinctly guttulate, thin-walled, smooth-walled.

A widespread fungal genus of some 200 species (Sutton 1980; Kirk et al. 2001; Hawksworth & Cole 2004) of which 14 are lichenicolous (Keissler 1930; Hawksworth 1981, 2003; Diederich 1986; Alstrup & Hawksworth 1990; Hawksworth & Cole 2004). It is accommodated in the Anamorphic Ascomycota (Lawrey & Diederich 2003; Etayo & Osorio 2004). Two species are recorded from New Zealand. A key to the known lichenicolous taxa is given by Hawksworth & Cole (2004: 9–12).